Within the program I teach, our practical lab and theory courses share content yet are independently evaluated. Some colleges have elected to put them together, more typical of anatomy or science classes that carry attached labs, but our school has always kept them separate.
As I think about going forward and envision changes I'd like to implement, the concepts of collaborative inquiry and increased student participation keep coming up, even for theory classrooms. These classes for the past many decades have been your typical lecture based room, sure the teachers use constant real-world examples to ensure relevance, but the student role is passive. Evaluation is done strictly by examinations. The argument for this has been that we ensure the students have a basic grasp of fundamental concepts, then later that week it is applied in lab and practiced. The students that typically excel here are those that come from a university background, those that have become "professional students", and are typically those that do well in a lecture hall and have the ability to synthesize spoken word into practice. This student is the minority in a college classroom, where more and more our cohorts are coming straight from college-stream high-school. Would this type of student, and all students really, not benefit from a more engaging classroom setting? Unfortunately, appealing to students to come better prepared to class to actively discuss our way through new concepts and apply them to case studies isn't enough, inevitably many are not motivated by this intrinsic appeal. They are often results driven, so how to externally motivate these reluctant numbers? I've been looking at a few class participation rubrics that may help remedy this. It is a quick way to scale quality of participation, and would provide the motivation to come to class ready to actively engage. The argument against this would be the question of watering down the course with such participation marks, but ultimately I think this does the opposite, strengthening not only the knowledge of content, but also imparting valuable good learning habits. The following link is to one such rubric, a simple 0-4 scale, which after an adjustment period I'm sure I could reflect after each class and apply to my 25-30 students. http://cte.virginia.edu/resources/grading-class-participation-2/
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AuthorI teach Paramedicine at Cambrian College, in Sudbury, Ontario. I also continue to work as a paramedic, and ride bikes. This is my third semester in the PME program, and I look forward to learning with everyone! Archives
March 2017
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